iBelt also provides valuable process data for controlling underground conveyor belts. The indurad solution measures conveyed volume, speed, center of gravity, misalignment and freeboard and thus provides all parameters for an efficient conveyor belt control. The information is used in the conveyor belt PLCs, the SCADA systems as well as the in Manufacturing Execution System (MES). Thus several stakeholders profit from the system: operators, maintenance crews as well as (plant) managers.
Applications
Flow control within the entire mine
iBelts report to a centralized system as well as directly to the belt-drives
iLDRs mounted left and right of the conveyor on the tunnel wall measure misalignment and load position on the belt.
iBelt in potash mine mounted on the tunnel roof
iBelt in combination with a laser during performance benchmarking
Tripper Car Application
iBelt is either installed on the tripper car itself or on the feeding conveyor in the stockpile building. The sensor measures the volume flow and provides this information to the tripper car driver. Based on the volumetric flow rate, the travelling speed of the tripper car is set. Thus homogeneous stacking and an optimal usage of the stockpile is achieved. Operators can be moved from dangerous working spots to remote control centers.
iBelt controls tripper car speed
Plant Flow Application
iBelt provides real time process data (volume, speed, …) about all belts within a plant (e.g. crushing area and foundry) to the SCADA system. Based on this information, automatic or manual decisions can be made in order to utilize the plant in the best way. An example is a Chilean copper mine in which the mills are the bottle neck of the entire mine. With our iBelt solution we can distribute optimum charge to the mills at any time.
Stacker Travel Application
Volume flow measurement on the ingoing conveyor allows to regulate luff / long travel movements of stackers. Volume flow (m³/h) is provided to the stacker PLC to control the stacker.
Hard coal in China
Iron ore stacker in Australia
Misalignment Application
Misalignment of conveyor belts reduces lifetime and throughput, of the belt while increasing energy consumption. iBelt measures the belt position as well as the position of the material on the belt 4.000 times per second with a sub-millimeter (< 1 mm) precision. By having this real time information, chutes, transfer points, discharge belts or specialized idlers can be adjusted to make the belt fall back into its designated position in the girdlers.
Shiploader Application
While loading a ship, constant material flow is of utmost importance. The material flow into and out of surge bins can be monitored by indurad iBelts and thus controlled. iBelt helps to fill the belt – see above photograph – to its maximum capacity.
A-Frame Reclaimer Application
On an A-Frame reclaimer, the iBelt is mounted on the machine, thus measuring the exact volume flow from the reclaimer. This information is used to control the long travel and boom angle on the machine. Simple and efficient.
Tunneling Machines Application
On tunneling machines the iBelt measures the volume taken from the tunneling machine and compares it with the cut tunnel volume. This solution makes sure that no additional caverns are drilled. At the same time the system is used to compensate and control contractors with independent control data on dug-out material.
Reversing Conveyor Application
On reversing conveyors, iBelt measures the flow into the activated direction. Also iBelt detects when the conveyor runs and into which direction.
Bucket Wheel Application
iBelt installed right after the bucket wheel allows to measure volume flow and feed this back into the control loop for optimization of cutting depth and slew (reclaimers) as well as long travel (excavators) speed. Improvement potential is huge, customers report between 10% and 20% productivity increase and about 30% reduction of under- or overloading events on their belts.
iBelt retrofit installation on coal bucket wheeler at European terminal
